There's Hope For Drake After All

To those of you who have been down with Drake since day one, the thought that is probably floating in your talk bubble right now is “when did Drake fall off for there to be hope for him?” Well, lately Drake has not been doing it for most fans, preferably Hip-Hop fans, and was starting to become like a stale Ritz cracker with molded cheese on top. Many people were starting to think that he was nothing more than just hype.



“Best I Ever Had” became a hit, in my opinion, way too fast. It was a great song and had a great concept but the whole perception of the song and the rapper was totally skewed.

For one, we didn’t even know that he didn’t write the track. That’s because he was parading around telling folks how he came up with the hit and what it meant to him. Turns out, he had help writing the song and even adopted the flow, so the whole thing was beginning to look like The Crying Game but of music.

Then, he released a less than stellar video for a song that was so descriptive. Most fans, especially the ladies, were waiting for the girl that he described in the song. Instead, fans got a bunch of half-naked (gorgeous, yes they were gorgeous) females with a concept that should have been used by another rapper on another song.

Yes, the cypher favorite “Forever” did the trick and made us not count Drake out – he was in a song with the likes of Eminem, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West so of course it was a good look, but there were some who were still not convinced.

Some may argue that Drake did the job of solidifying himself as an artist because he was being featured on tracks with known-named artists and helping them top the charts. But truth be told, most of those artists were probably not beating down his door for a feature because of his talent, it may have had something to do with his popularity and the kind of crowd they wanted to borrow to move units.

Note: This is all said not to downplay his Grammy nomination for his mixtape, So Far Gone, because that was a great toast to his accomplishments.

Right when we were about to brush Drake off as just another hyped up one-hit wonder he releases the video for “Find Your Heart.” Let me just say that the song was a no go for me at first. I’m sorry but the singing just drives me nuts and not in a good way. I’m all for a little singing here and there especially for kicks and giggles the way Biz Markie executed that sublimely on “Just a Friend”, but for it to be done almost always, it can get a bit annoying.

“Find Your Heart” made me cringe when I first heard it, but the hook was just too intoxicating for me to hate it. The video, however, did the trick of keeping the song lodge in my memory to the point that I am humming it right now as I type this post. The “Find Your Heart” video was creative and brought that element of excitement that has been missing from videos.

You know why it worked? Drake brought something new to the table. It wasn’t your cliché video of buxom beauties making it clap in the rain on top of a Maybach, it was a video that combined the thing that Drake is familiar with, acting.

If I were Drake, I would always employ the two things that I know and make it one. By combining his acting chops with the songs that will appear on his album, Thank Me Later, Drake could easily start a brand new trend of weaving in the concepts of the videos to the lyrics of the song and probably even turning it into an anthology. The video for “Find Your Heart” still has people talking, whether it be about if his leading lady shot him or her boyfriend all the way to what the villains were saying because some people needed subtitles to get by.

The rumors that were released about him stealing his leading lady from her boyfriend definitely helped with the interest of the storyline but I wouldn’t suggest releasing homemade rumors just to get attention…that can always backfire.

Drake is on to something original and rarely done right now and if he plays his cards right, there might be hope for him after all.